


this is not a return

by Thalius



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Blood and Injury, Emotional Baggage, F/M, First Aid, Mandomera Week 2021, Mutual Pining, Past Relationship(s), Post-Season/Series 01, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 08:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30019023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thalius/pseuds/Thalius
Summary: He came back to Sorgan because she asked him to, but that does not mean he'll stay.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin/Omera
Comments: 8
Kudos: 74
Collections: Mandomera Week 2021





	this is not a return

**Author's Note:**

> I realise I am a clown of epic proportions for posting something set after [A Real Backwater Skughole](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21611599/chapters/51533602) before finishing it first, but I swear to god that fic is still in the works I just have more brain damage than mister Din Djarin himself so it’s taking me a while sorry <3
> 
> This is a combination of the Day 1 (unresolved romantic tension) and Day 2 (patching up each other's wounds) prompts for [Mandomera Week](https://mandomeraweek.tumblr.com/)!!

“Can you breathe?”

That was a good question. He felt Cara’s hand wrap around the lip of his breastplate and shake him a little bit when he didn’t respond right away. He grabbed her arm to still her. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely, the word coming out swollen and nasally.

“Sounds like your nose is broken. Come on, up you get.” Cara grunted as she helped him stand with an arm around his shoulders, and he leaned into her while he got his feet properly under him. The inside of the compound was a mess; the Imps in here had put up a surprising amount of resistance, despite how shabby and run-down the encampment itself was. The cheap plastoid of a dozen Stormtroopers still smouldered around them from fresh blaster wounds, but all he could smell was the biting copper in his nose.

He winced as he pressed his palm to the back of his helmet, trying to push his visor further forward. It had been a while since someone had hit him in the face hard enough to slam his visor into his nose, and he forgot how much it hurt.

“Are your charges still primed?” Cara asked him, gingerly pulling away from him. He waved her off, standing under his own power, and glanced down at his vambrace.

“Still good,” he reported.

“Great. Let’s get out of here.”

He followed after her, his blaster still in his grip. The walls seemed to move slightly around him as he walked, and he wondered if he’d gotten a concussion on top of a broken nose. The inside of his visor was speckled with crimson, and he could feel the blood pouring from his nose, down his chin and wetting his cloak. Breathing through his mouth only made visibility worse, fogging up his visor. He could feel the filter in his helmet struggling to correct the mess coating the inside of it, and in the meantime, he kept his eyes to the ground to make sure he didn’t trip on bodies or debris.

Din skimmed his free hand along doorways and walls for support as he struggled to keep up with Cara. Several paces ahead of him, she was winding through the narrow corridors of the now-doomed Imperial compound. This had definitely been a retrofit job; it didn’t have the polish or layout of an Imperial-built facility. 

“We’ll meet back up with you at Mando’s ship,” he could hear her saying into her comlink, no doubt talking to Omera. “I don’t think there’s anyone else left, but keep an eye out just in case.”

“She see anyone?”

Cara glanced over her shoulder at him, clearly amused at the muffled sound of his voice, and then frowned. “You look like shit,” she said instead of answering him, slowing to a halt before doubling back to grab his arm. He was more unsteady on his feet than he thought.

“Feel like it,” he replied thickly, wishing desperately that he could wipe his face clean. “I’ll be fine.”

“You always say that.” She looped an arm under his and began moving again, and he let her do most of the work. 

Din cleared his throat and repeated his question. “Did she see anyone?”

“No. We killed everyone before they had a chance to run.”

“Good.”

The question of why there was an Imperial outpost on Sorgan continued to go unanswered. They hadn’t found anything particularly damning in the small, refurbished facility; mostly just repurposed Empire-era equipment and a few monitoring dishes. It was a possible explanation for why the AT-ST had been harassing villages a year prior, but the Imps’ reasons for setting up shop here in the first place was still a mystery. 

The planet was a good place to hide, he thought. Maybe that’s what they’d been doing. He supposed it didn’t matter much anymore.

Cara carried them both out of the facility in short order, though her face was flushed with effort. If he were less concussed, he’d feel more guilty about making her haul him around—though by this point it was becoming something of a habit.

“Are you gonna fall over if I put you on a speederbike?” she asked him, making for the vehicle lot just outside the main entrance. They’d approached the place on foot, but walking back to his ship didn’t sound very appealing at the moment.

“No,” he responded, and hoped that was true.

Cara snorted. “You’re a terrible liar.” 

Instead of the single-occupant bikes, she guided them towards one of the small troop transports and shoved him into the passenger seat. Numbly, he watched her move around to the driver’s side and slump into the seat next to him.

With a slam she shut her door, and then looked over at him with a raised brow. “You gonna strap in, champ?”

“In a minute,” he replied, and then leaned out of the vehicle, lifting the edge of his helmet up far enough so he could spit the worrying amount of blood that had collected in his mouth. He wiped the excess off with the meat of his thumb, then let his helmet fall back down before collapsing back into his seat. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly through his mouth.

“You good?”

There was real concern in Cara’s voice, and she smacked his arm when he didn’t answer. “Yeah,” he mumbled, and without looking reached over and closed his door. “Hate breaking my nose.”

Cara huffed. “Do you do that often?”

“Once before,” he said, leaning back in the headrest. It pressed his helmet forward again, giving him a little more wiggle to move his head. “I’ll be fine,” he assured her then, sensing her concern. “Drive.”

“Yes sir,” she muttered, but the humour in her voice was still tempered with worry. 

* * *

The spectacle of the Imperial compound exploding was oddly dissatisfying from her vantage point. Omera watched its smouldering remains rain down on the forest around it through the scope of her rifle. If no one had tried to escape before, they certainly wouldn’t be able to now.

She set her rifle down with a sigh, exchanging it out for the binocs Din had lent her earlier. The sight of a troop transport rapidly approaching her position would normally have made her open fire, but Cara had given her the heads up that they’d be arriving in one. That should have been her first clue that something was wrong—she knew there were speederbikes at the compound, and those were much faster than a transport.

Omera watched them from her elevated position as they drove through the wooded area, almost disappointed they were the first signs of activity she’d seen from the compound since they’d entered it a few hours before. That, and the facility blowing to pieces. Not that she particularly enjoyed killing people, but Imperials were another story—especially ones that set up shop so close to home.

She stood up from her prone position and began to make her way down towards the  _ Crest _ once she confirmed no one was following after them. Her vantage point had been an excellent one, even if it proved largely unnecessary. Her rifle, now slung over her shoulder, knocked heavily against her back as she climbed down from the steep hills surrounding the area. By all accounts, the infiltration had gone surprisingly well. She wasn’t used to things going her way.

Her feet hit the ground just as the transport pulled to a stop, and she watched Cara get out before quickly heading over to the passenger side. Omera felt an immediate spike of concern.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, walking up to the hood of the vehicle as Cara hauled Din out of his seat.

“Big guy got knocked around a little bit,” she replied, slinging his arm around her shoulders. Omera could see that the front of his gambeson was soaked with blood, and his breastplate was splattered with errant drops of crimson. “He’ll be fine.”

She rushed over to help, grabbing Din’s free arm and ignoring his protests. “What happened?”

“Got hit in the face,” he mumbled, his voice coming out stuffy.

“Concussion, too,” Cara told her over the arch of his helmet. “Got banged up good.”

“I’m fine,” he protested. “Just let me—let me into the ship.”

They guided him towards the rear gangplank of the  _ Razor Crest,  _ and Din activated something on his vambrace so that the ramp began to descend. Despite his assurances that he was fine, she could feel how heavily he was relying on both Cara’s and her own support to keep him upright—and if he was leaning on her, then something was definitely wrong.

“You need proper medical attention,” Omera told him as they walked slowly up the ramp and into his hold. His feet dragged with each step. Really not good.

“I have a kit in the  _ Crest.”  _

“Take him for a sec,” Cara told her, pulling away and grabbing one of the folded up chairs he kept tucked under the storage netting and setting it out in the middle of the cargo hold. She turned and looked at him, appraising him with a critical eye. “Can you walk on your own to this chair?”

Omera gave her an exasperated look. “Cara—”

“Yes,” he hissed, disentangling his arm from Omera’s grasp and walking unsteadily over to the chair. He made it, barely, before practically falling down into the seat, the legs screeching against the deck plating from the jostling.

“Sure,” Cara muttered, and looked up at her with a knowing smirk. “How do Mandalorians get patched up, anyway? You guys have mando doctors?”

“I can do it myself,” he said stubbornly. “Pass me the kit in the bathroom, below the mirror.”

Omera bit her lip. She should leave him be. He’d certainly suffered worse injuries before and had to tend to them on his own. But….

“Din—” Omera sighed when he looked at her. “I can do it for you.”

There was a pause. Cara went still, halfway to the kit, and she looked at Din.

“Can she do that?” 

“I said I can do it myself,” he repeated. The authority in his voice was brutally undercut by the nasally, whistling delivery of his words, and Cara ignored him completely. Instead she raised a brow and grabbed the medkit, turning to wiggle it in Omera’s direction.

“Well?”

Omera glanced back at Din. It was impossible to tell his thoughts beneath his visor, but she could see that there was blood still dripping from underneath the lip of his helmet, splashing onto his cloak. Even seated, he weaved in place. He’d probably struggle to count to ten right now, let alone patch himself up.

And she owed him some first aid care, at the very least. He’d come back here to help her deal with the Imperials, after all. Repaying a debt didn’t have to mean anything else.

“Just let me help you,” she said quietly.

He was silent for a moment. Then, he sighed, and flinched at the exhale. His helmet swivelled, glancing over his shoulder at Cara. “Give her the kit.” His tone was almost resigned.

Her brows raised to her hairline. “You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

_ “Seriously?” _

He tensed up. “Yes,” he repeated, more firmly this time.

“You were gonna die on Nevarro because you wouldn’t let me treat your brain damage, but you’re letting her put a bandaid on your nose?”

Omera’s eyes widened. “Your  _ what?” _

“This is different,” Din cut in, completely ineffectual. 

Cara snorted. “How is it different?”

“It just is.” He reached for the kit, and she held it away from him.

“Explain it to me, then.”

His hand dropped with another pained sigh. He looked back at Omera, and she could see the defeated slouch of his shoulders.

Omera frowned. “Cara, we can talk about this later—”

“She’s seen my face before,” Din interrupted her, and the hold went quiet.

Cara’s lips pursed. She glanced back and forth between them, and then her mouth curled into a grin. “I see.”

“Are you done?” Omera asked impatiently.

She laughed. “Oh, not even close. But I’ll leave you two alone for now.” She grinned as she passed her the medkit, and slapped Omera on the back as she passed. “Don’t have too much fun in here,” she called, heading down the ramp. “I’ll be outside waiting!”

Din watched her leave, glower evident in the annoyed tilt of his head, and he didn’t look away from the gangplank until she was completely out of sight. Then he looked at her, deflated, and she gave him an apologetic smile.

“Take off your helmet.”

* * *

He watched as Omera set up the other chair and sit down in front of him. The air inside his ship was cool and dry, but there was a breeze from outside that wafted in from the rear entrance, and it blew pleasantly against his grimy skin.

“Sometimes I wonder why you keep hanging around her,” Omera whispered, the medkit balanced on her legs as she sorted carefully through it. “She can be very intrusive.”

“I wonder that too,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on her hands. Her fingers were long, blunt at the ends and worn from work. He knew that was a deceptive assessment—her skin was incredibly soft, softer than he’d ever expected a person’s hands could be. 

He also knew he shouldn’t be thinking about it. He’d left Sorgan once before, and this was not a return.

“I didn’t mean for you to tell her that,” Omera continued, and he realised they were still talking. She was peeling a sterile pad out of its packaging, and he blinked his eyes back into focus. 

“It’s alright.” He glanced towards the open ramp. “She asks about it a lot anyway. Maybe this will shut her up,” he added, knowing that absolutely would not be the case.

“Really? What did you say to her?”

Din looked back at her. “I told her nothing happened.”

Omera nodded, saying nothing. She looked down at the medkit, unfolding the pad from the paper wrapping in her hands.

“I have to wipe your face first,” she told him, her tone matter-of-fact. Not rude, but the lack of her usual warmth made his throat tighten. “It might sting a little.”

He nodded, bracing himself—not for the cool swab of alcohol, but the warmth of her hand. He still wasn’t prepared when she touched him. Unsuccessfully, he tried to focus on the throbbing pain in his nose and not the gentle guidance of her fingers on his face

“You seem to make a habit of this,” she said quietly, the pad brushing against his cheek.

“Getting injured?”

“Well, yes,” she said with a smile. “But I meant—coming to me when you’re a mess like this.”

“Oh.” The answering smile that tugged at his mouth was involuntary—and he flinched almost immediately as it pulled at the skin around his nose.

“No smiling,” Omera instructed seriously, which had the opposite intended effect. It was a struggle to sober. “And keep still.” She grabbed his chin firmly, keeping him immobile, and continued to wipe his face clean. The contact shocked him into going still. It was difficult to figure out where to look, knowing she could see every glance. He settled for her collarbone, determining that to be his safest bet.

The pad stung when she swabbed it over his nose, but not anything painful enough to warrant pulling away from her. She had to take out another pad to clear away the excess blood running down his face, and then gave him gauze to hold under his nose to stem the bleeding. 

“Keep that firmly under your nose,” she told him, standing up and setting the medkit on the chair before heading to his sink. He tracked her movements across the hold, dutifully cupping the gauze to his nose. She’d replaced her usual farmer’s garb with a utility jumpsuit for this operation, her hair wrapped up in a tight bun. The rifle he’d given her sat leaned up against the wall. He wondered if she was disappointed about not being able to fire it at anyone. 

“What was Cara talking about?” Omera asked, loudly enough to be heard over the running water. “Brain damage?”

“She was exaggerating,” he said quickly. “There was a fight on Nevarro, with some Imps. I got hit.”

“Sort of like now?”

He huffed. “Yeah. It was worse than this, though.”

She turned off the tap, turning to look at him, rubbing her hands dry with a towel. There was a worried crease in her brow that deepened at his words. She looked like she wanted to say something, and for a moment her lips parted as if to speak, before she turned away again to throw the towel over the edge of the sink. 

“Can you breathe okay?” she asked instead, her tone flat and even. She came back to sit down on the seat, setting the medkit back in her lap.

“Hurts,” he replied. “But yeah.”

“Good. I’m going to feel the bridge for fractures,” she warned him, hand hanging in the air in front of his face, and he nodded. 

He tracked the movement of her hand, and flinched again when he felt her fingers on his skin again. She paused, looking at him with a raised brow, and he cleared his throat. “It’s fine,” he assured her.

“Does it hurt when I touch it?”

He didn’t know how to tell her that wasn’t what he was flinching at. “A little.”

She seemed to find that amusing for some reason. He kept still as she continued to gently prod his nose, hissing whenever she touched a tender spot. Her fingers retreated far too quickly for his liking, and she began sorting through the kit again.

“Well, I don’t think it’s broken,” she told him. He glanced down as she took out a bandage. “The skin is split across your nose, but it looks like you just took a bad hit. Is your nose still bleeding?”

He pulled the gauze away to inspect it. It was a bloody mess, but he waited for his nose to drip again. “Maybe,” he murmured uncertainly after a moment, pressing it back to his nose. “Not as much as it was.”

“Good.” She nudged his chin again to bring his head up and met his eyes, scanning his face. “I definitely think you have a concussion, though.”

“Probably,” he mumbled, trying not to lean into the pressure of her fingers on his chin. She must have known how it felt, her skin on his. He wondered if she was doing it on purpose. 

But maybe she didn’t, and maybe she wasn’t. It had been a long time since she’d last touched him, and he couldn’t be certain she remembered it the same way he did.

“Which means,” she continued, and he berated himself for drifting off in his thoughts again, “that you need to rest, and not fly, or shoot, or run anywhere for the next several days at least.”

He couldn’t nod, because her fingers were still wrapped firmly around his chin, and words were a little difficult at the moment, so he opted simply for meeting her eyes. She held him in place long enough to smooth the bandage across the bridge of his nose, and then her hands fell away. He let his own drop, too, the gauze a folded, gory mess clenched in his still-gloved palm.

He’d remembered the colour of her eyes fairly well, though they were darker than he was used to, sitting under the shitty interior running lights of his cargo hold as opposed to the direct and open sunlight of Sorgan’s summer. 

“What?” she asked, and he realised he was staring.

“Thank you,” he replied hastily, looking away. “For—this.” He gestured up at his face.

“I should say the same. Getting rid of that base is a huge relief.”

“It’s the least we could do,” he murmured, meaning every word.

The smile she gave him was sad, but her tone was even when she replied. “You seem more lucid now, which is good. You were pretty out of it when Cara brought you in.”

“Yeah.”

Her hand advanced from his chin, coming up to cup at his jaw. He closed his eyes and finally gave into the impulse to lean into her touch, the contact making him shiver.

“Din.”

He knew that tone. It was soft, her words spoken as if he was the only one who’d ever heard them. 

His breath caught in his throat. He thought of her broad mouth, the only thing softer than her hands. “Yes?” 

He felt the phantom sensation of her lips on his own, the memory a paltry attempt by his body to prepare him for the real thing. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been anticipating it until now, his face cradled in her hand, and didn’t breathe as he waited for her to lean forward and actually kiss him.

“I can’t fly your ship,” she whispered instead. “Does Cara know how?”

It took him a moment to register what she was saying. “Oh.” He straightened then, pulling away from her touch and opening his eyes. “Um, I don’t know. Probably.”

“I’ll ask her, then.” Her hand retreated from his face, and the cool air that rushed in to take its place burned across his jaw. She closed the medkit, standing up again and going back to his bathroom, where she reattached the kit to the hook below his mirror.

His hands fisted overtop his knees, and he took a deep breath through his nose. The pain helped clear his head.

“You’ll need to move it away from the facility,” she was saying. “Probably close to the village.”

“Right.”

He recovered in his seat while she folded her own back up and tucked it into the storage netting. He knew he needed to get up, secure his helmet back onto his head, and then get Cara in here to figure out how long they were staying. His first thought was of the kid—how much he enjoyed playing with Winta, running around the village and soaking up the attention of the other children. Perhaps they would stay here for a few days while he healed. It had been a while since the kid had been around people his own age. Relatively speaking, anyway.

But then again…. 

Omera stopped in front of him, and he looked up to see her hand held out in offer. Silently he took it, and only realised how much he needed the support when he tried to stand again. His head swam at the movement.

She caught his arm as he straightened, holding him while he got his bearings, and as a consequence she was much closer than she had been before. She had to tilt her head up to meet his eyes. “Are you alright?”

“I think so,” he whispered, knowing she was only talking about his injuries. She wouldn’t want to know about anything else. The grip on his bicep was warm, even through his gambeson, and his hand had come up involuntarily to cup her elbow. “Omera….”

“What is it?”

An apology hung at the edge of his mouth. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was for—leaving, maybe, even though he would be leaving again very soon. 

“Thank you,” he said instead, with enough gravity that he hoped she understood what he was trying to say.

Her eyes scanned his face, a sensation he would never get used to, like she wanted to find what he was trying to offer her. The ache to kiss her bloomed painfully in his chest again, to pull her close and hold her as gently as he remembered being held by her. The memory of it haunted him now, standing inches apart from her, just as deeply as it did in the middle of the night. And he thought he saw a flicker of it in her own eyes, reflecting back at him what had been burning low in his gut ever since they’d landed on Sorgan yesterday.

But she didn’t lean forward, and she did not kiss him, because he was not here to come back. 

“I’ll go get Cara,” she said instead with a smile, her words sounding like a goodbye. Her hand retreated from his arm as she stepped away, and he knew he would not feel it again.


End file.
